New Jersey: Phillips 66 Bayway Refinery Leaks 7,700 Gallons Oil

Nov 5 (Reuters) – Some 7,700 gallons of fuel spilled from Phillips 66’s Bayway refinery in Linden, New Jersey, after Hurricane Sandy, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday, reporting the second significant leak at the New York harbor oil trading hub.

The spill was reported after residents in nearby Bayonne, New Jersey, complained about diesel fumes.

It was not clear what type of fuel leaked from the refinery or what measures were taken to contain it. A Phillips 66 spokesperson did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment.

A similar-sized spill was reported last week at Motiva Enterprise’s Sewaren, New Jersey, terminal, which was one of the hardest hit among the oil docks, tank farms and truck depots that dot the harbor and supply fuel to the New York City metropolis.

By Saturday, authorities had recaptured about 10 percent of the 378,000 gallons of diesel fuel that had leaked from the Motiva site, while about half of the remaining fuel is believed to have simply evaporated, a New Jersey Department of Environment Protection spokesman said. The other half is heading out to sea.

The Coast Guard said about 14,800 feet of boom had been deployed, and 457,519 gallons of oily-water mixture had been recovered at Motiva, which is co-owned by Royal Dutch Shell and state-owned Saudi Aramco.

The Coast Guard also reported that it had recovered 780,000 gallons of an oil-water mixture from Kinder Morgan’s Perth Amboy, New Jersey, fuel storage terminal, although Kinder Morgan said that the liquid referred to a clean-up operation at a separate terminal up the river, not its own tanks.

The Coast Guard said contractors were also examining a sheen coming from a nearby Buckeye facility.

It was unclear whether the spill at Phillips 66’s 238,000 Bayway refinery would have any impact on operations at the refinery, a major gasoline producer in the region. The earlier Motiva spill prompted the Coast Guard to restrict traffic through the key Arthur Kill waterway, although those limits were lifted by Monday so long as vessels move slowly.

The Linden refinery was shut ahead of Sandy and remained idle even though electrical power was restored to the plant earlier last week.